Modern healthcare facilitates the ability for patients to lead healthy and full lives. Implantable medical devices (IMDs) are often utilized for such medical advances. For example, IMDs such as pacemakers, implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs), neurostimulators, and drug pumps can facilitate management with a wide range of ailments, including, but not limited to, cardiac arrhythmias, diabetes, and Parkinson's disease. Patients and medical care providers can monitor the IMD and assess the current and historical physiological state of a patient to identify and/or predict impending events or conditions.
Implantable devices are transitioning from using proprietary telemetry technologies to using non-proprietary telemetry technologies such as, BLUETOOTH®, BLUETOOTH® low energy (BLE), Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) protocol, and the like, as methods to interface with external devices. Transitioning to non-proprietary telemetry technologies can reduce cost by reducing or eliminating the need for expensive, proprietary instrumentation. These non-proprietary telemetry technologies can employ various mechanisms to establish a secure relationship between devices prior to allowing the devices to communicate certain information with one another using the non-proprietary telemetry communication protocol, a process referred to herein as “pairing.” These pairing mechanisms are publically available in standard documents. As a result, additional security may be useful to initiate pairing and/or become paired with an implantable device that uses a non-proprietary telemetry communication protocol.